A Bilborough College student has been accepted onto a prestigious programme that aims to help more young black and mixed race people get into Oxbridge universities.

Tatenda Mapfaira has been selected to be part of the Target Oxbridge initiative, which is open to students across the country who are in Year 12. The 17-year-old heard about the programme from a relative who is a lawyer.

She said: “His company works doing outreach and he told me about Target Oxbridge. I am hoping to study Medicine at an Oxbridge university so I decided to apply. I filled in an application and then there was an interview; we were sent three articles and we had to research and talk about them via Skype, we were also asked questions about them.

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A Bilborough College student was awarded a national prize for her A-level Geography coursework in a special ceremony that was held online due to current social distancing restrictions.

Charlotte Parrish, 18, won the Geographical Association’s NEA (coursework) Proposal National Award and was due to be presented with her prize at the GA’s Annual Conference in April.

However, due to the Coronavirus lockdown the conference was streamed ‘live’ on YouTube and her award was announced as part of the proceedings. She won a £100 Amazon voucher and will receive a certificate through the post.

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Students from Bilborough College are waiting to find out if they have made it to the national final of this year’s UK Senior Team Maths Challenge trophy.

Sebastian Wright, Charlotte Jones, James Goodliffe and Liam Holland finished second in the regional final, which was held at the University of Nottingham and run jointly by the UK Mathematics Trust and the Further Maths Support Network.

The team that finished first goes through to the national final but judges told the team from Bilborough College that they will be informed soon if they have done enough to secure a place at the event.

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A student at Bilborough College is celebrating after winning Gold at the kickboxing Unified World Championships in Italy – despite only taking up the sport a year ago.

Megan Hately, of Awsworth, was representing GB at the competition in Carrera where she claimed Gold in the continuous category, Bronze in the points category and Gold in the team points category.

The 17 year old, who is studying A-levels in English Literature and Philosophy and a BTEC in Public Services, took kickboxing up a year ago after switching from Taekwondo.

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Bilborough Sixth Form College has become a founding member of a new Multi-Academy Trust.

Following an extensive consultation period, the college has joined the Better Futures Multi-Academy Trust (BFMAT), which has been designed with sixth form colleges in mind and is sponsored by Coventry University. Its first member college, King Edward VI in Nuneaton, joined in January 2019.

This move is intended to safeguard the College’s future and to preserve the distinctive Sixth Form College experience for students. To qualify for membership of the Trust, the Corporation of Bilborough Sixth Form College has been dissolved in order that Bilborough Sixth Form College can convert to a 16-19 academy and join the Trust.

The name, identity, location, values, vision and mission of Bilborough Sixth Form College will remain the same. Students will remain registered at Bilborough Sixth Form College, accessing the same provision in the same location and the college will still be headed by its own principal. Teachers will continue to teach at Bilborough Sixth Form College only and staff terms and conditions will remain the same.

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Pupils in Nepal are enjoying meals at their primary school for the first time thanks to a group of students and staff from Bilborough College.

Twenty-eight students and staff spent two weeks in Nepal this summer and before setting off they raised £4,780, with the support of a local charity, to pay for the construction of a new school kitchen at a local primary school.

Previously, children at the school were not given meals and many of them often struggled to concentrate or fainted in lessons due to the lack of food.

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Students at Bilborough Sixth Form College quizzed MP Anna Soubry on topics ranging from Brexit to sixth form funding during a question and answer session.

The Tory MP for Broxtowe visited the college after receiving an email from student Tilly Wring, 18, asking about further education funding.

Tilly said she was delighted that Anna had responded by coming in to Bilborough College to answer students’ questions.

She said: “My parents are both lecturers and they’ve had a lot of issues with changes in funding at universities and it’s a lot worse at colleges. 16-18 education funding is dire and is unsustainable. I emailed Anna to express my concerns as a constituent and I wanted to talk to her about that and she offered to come in. I think this was a really great opportunity and I’m really pleased she agreed to do it.”

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Bilborough Sixth Form College has seen the number of students receiving conditional offers from Oxbridge universities reach its highest percentage for three years.

Just over a third of students who applied have been offered places at a range of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge universities on courses including Engineering, English Literature, Chemistry, Biochemistry, PPE, Modern Languages and Music.

Thirteen students out of 39 – or 33 per cent –  who applied to Oxford and Cambridge have received conditional offers – the highest percentage for the last three years.

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Bilborough College has celebrated a 10-year link with a lifesaving bone marrow donor initiative by signing up its 1,000^th student to the programme.

Register & Be a Lifesaver sessions were launched at Bilborough College in 2009 and from the 1,095 students who have signed up there have been seven donors.

The most recent was Amy Rogers, 18, of Sherwood, who donated her bone marrow in October 2016 after signing up to the register following an R&Be talk at Bilborough College in 2014. She was also the 50^th donor from the R&Be programme.

Student Ethan Buttress became the UK’s youngest bone marrow donor to a non-related recipient at the age of 17 in 2014 after signing up to R&Be at Bilborough College.

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Bilborough College students debated the complexities of Brexit with Labour MP Alex Norris and the co-founder of an organisation dedicated to ensuring that young people’s views on the subject are heard.

Mr Norris, MP for Nottingham North, joined Femi Oluwole, from Our Future, Our Choice, for a lively question and answer session about Brexit in the refectory at Bilborough College.

Mr Oluwole said Our Future, Our Choice was campaigning for a second vote on the terms of any deal agreed by Prime Minister Theresa May.

He said: “I always give the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland as an example. A copy of that was sent to every person and they were given the opportunity to vote on it and that is the democratic way forward. Young people need to be involved and we want to know what their opinions are.”

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